


Never. Always. Sometimes.

by baehj2915



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Episode 84 Hope for the Bard, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Shorthalt Family Feels, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 04:18:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9583289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915
Summary: “Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”“Everything, always.”Her chest hurt a little bit. Every time he spoke she liked him a little more. It was really fucking annoying.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Huge spoilers for ep83-84 if you're not caught up. So go away if you'e strict on spoilers because I mean...  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> I think it would be hard not to know at this point that Scanlan died and then un-died and it was all 1000x the feels and all 1000x the frights. And I just wanted to write up a quick little thing about The Talk Kaylie and Scanlan are expected to have before they inevitably rip our goddamn hearts out for the billionth time in a month next week in ep85. 
> 
> So, omg, here we go. Gnomes and their complex fucking emotions and carefully constructed lies all falling down around them! 
> 
>  
> 
> ~*~

Kaylie felt like a fool whenever she thought of him. 

She hated him for all the years she can remember. It was easy, seeing her mother’s fears and her mother’s struggles. It was easy never seeing his face, or always seeing his face in every lecher and drunk and traveler she passed. It was easy when she heard stories about him specifically, hearing about his adventures and skills and charms. Her mother had drudgery, he had fancies, and the difference was stupidly, achingly unfair. 

Hating him, with practice, as much or more as she put into music, became her strongest suit. She obsessed with finding more about him. That was easy too since nearly almost everyone who met him seemed to remember him. Her first foot forward in every step was to find him and cut him down. 

Then she couldn’t. 

And she felt like an idiot because she never expected it. Years and years of planning and chasing and hating that charming arsehole, and, funny thing, he actually turned out to be charming. Despite being told every time his name was mentioned, she never actually believed the fucker would be charming. 

He didn’t know who she was, so he came off funny and a bit sweet. And damned if he couldn’t play. She assumed standard fair for any girl he took a shine to. It didn’t really mean much in the long run. Her mother had once said there was just something bright in his eyes she found irresistible and Kaylie had seen that too. He charmed the crowd in that bar as easy as breathing. If she hadn’t known who he was, she probably would’ve liked him. Hell, she probably would’ve wanted to learn his tricks. 

Her plans to take revenge on the scoundrel that abandoned her mother somehow slipped into hoping the fool who accidentally fathered her stayed alive. 

Then he didn’t. Which somehow mattered less in the company of Vox Machina, party of dragon-slayers, legendary adventurers, and insufferable arseholes. 

So he died, then he didn’t even stick with that. 

Hungover and angry about pretty much everything, she volunteered to watch over him. She still wasn’t totally sure why. She sure as fuck didn’t want to, but when after the ritual had worked, after she found herself to the third sad pub in this sad town, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to flee. 

She looked at the ring on her finger that he gave her and felt like an idiot. 

It took longer than she expected for him to wake again. The remnants of his friends’ prank were wiped away by servants when they eventually came by. Apparently in castles servants didn’t need to be told to clear food smeared on the walls, they just did it. A, very confused and irritated, nurse untied his arms from the bed and scrubbed vaguely familiar words off his head, but Kaylie said nothing about the silky, flouncy sky blue nightgown so it stayed. 

She did stay by his bed all day. The lure of wandering through a castle unwatched, nicking fancy gold candlesticks or whatever pompous rich gits kept in castles, had no appeal for some reason. She stayed in the room, played cards against herself, practiced some voices when servants stopped in to give her food or check on him, and played her fiddle. 

When the sun started to set, as she was absently playing a slow rendition of The River Rose, she looked down to see him looking back. 

She startled, hashing a note with a sharp twang. 

“You’re awake. Finally.” She bent down to put her fiddle in its case and while she was down, slipped the sapphire ring on her hand into her pocket. 

His eyes were big and dark and unblinking. He said nothing. But for the little rise and fall to his chest she would’ve wondered if he’d gone back to death. 

Impatient, she snapped, “Well, I think I’m owed an apology at least.” 

“I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m sorry, darling.” 

His voice was croaky. She couldn’t help but think a particularly rough group she’d been hired in for a time before Dr. Dranzel that resorted to grave-digging to pull some riches off a recently deceased enemy. His voice sounded like the nailed coffin lid being pulled open. She wished she could think of something else. 

“Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?” 

“Everything, always.” Even rough from death, or revival, or both, he sounded sincere. 

Her chest hurt a little bit. Every time he spoke she liked him a little more. It was really fucking annoying. 

Kaylie sucked in a breath and sat back down in the wooden chair by his bed. “You’ve always got the right words on hand, haven’t you?” 

“Clearly not enough, or I wouldn’t have died.” No expression had yet crossed his face. 

“You died.” She couldn’t stop it from coming out. It was an accusation. It was a betrayal and she wasn’t sure whose. Yes, he’d promised not to die, but long before that she’d promised herself that she’d kill him. Turns out they _were_ a lot alike.

He breathed in heavily. “I think I may have died twice.” 

Kaylie frowned, getting angrier that she couldn’t shake the longing that had taken hold in her chest. “How does a body manage that? Do you even know what you’re talking about, old man?” 

“I don’t know. It’s hard to remember… I’m sorry, Kaylie. I broke my promise.” 

She wanted to slap him again. She wanted to yell at him. For dying, for never being there, for surprising her, for being as disappointing as she always expected, for changing her mind within hours of meeting him. 

She cleared her throat. “So what do you remember?” 

“I remember cold. I remember blood.”

“A glorious death then?” 

If he heard the soggy tone in her voice—also fuck him for making her cry more times since they met than she ever recalled in her life—he didn’t draw attention to it. 

“I’ve never believed death is glorious. I believe it even less now.” 

“Anything else?” She wanted to move forward or away from the threat of tears. She didn’t want him to think she cared enough to cry. At the same time, she wanted to pull words from him. She wanted to listen to him talk until she fell asleep. 

“I remember being very afraid.” 

“All men fear death,” she said, trying for nonchalant inquiry, but hearing only desperation in her own ears. 

The blank look stretching so far made him look a little dazed. He shook his head. “If I’d never met you, I wouldn’t mind dying. I never really cared before. But that’s all I can remember before I died. I remember being afraid, being terrified I would never see you again.” 

“You nearly didn’t, you fucking fool.” She sniffed and rubbed her nose hard. Tears rolled down her face again and she knew they wouldn’t stop. She tried to shield her face with her hands. 

After a moment, warm, soft fingers curled gently around her wrist. She looked up. He didn’t pull the lax arm from her face, just sort of held her wrist for a long moment. He had a soft smile on his face. Half stunned, she reached her hand out closer to him. 

He covered her hand with both of his, like he was a cleric about to pray. 

“I remember hearing music. I remember the feeling of words. I remember singing and dancing and music in the darkness.” A stronger smile pulled on his lips, half inspired and half smug like she remembered his smile to be. “You pulled me back. You brought me back to life. You love me.” 

Kaylie snorted, wiping tears from her cheeks with her free hand. “I tolerate you. I just don’t want you dead.” 

He blinked slowly, still smiling like he knew something she didn’t. “Okay.” 

“I’m serious. You’ve still got a lot to do to impress me, Shorthalt.” 

He nodded. “I know.” 

“I still half hate you.”

He still held a trace of that smile. “I know.” 

“I only want you to have more time to prove you’re not a complete reprobate.” 

“Okay.” 

Realizing that he’d been holding her hand for some time now, she pulled away, but slowly. “Besides,” she said, “I wasn’t the only one. The pretty half-elf lass was the one who found me in Kymal and convinced me to come here.”

“The pretty one is Vex’ahlia?” 

“She the one with the feathers?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, her.” 

He nodded. “You’ve got good taste in pretty ladies.”

More than prepared to ignore that, Kaylie said, “That giant fella and the holy woman performed for you too.” 

His eyebrow arched to his hairline. “Performed? As in, a bardic performance?” 

“Aye.”

“Grog? Grog sang? For me?” 

“Oh aye. And the holy woman wrote you a poem.” 

He shifted against his pillow for a moment, looking at the ceiling. “I only remember the feeling of it, not any details.” He said in a low conspiratorial voice, “Were they any good?” 

Kaylie laughed. “They were shite. But full of heart.” His smile lingered, then faded a bit as he examined the ceiling more. “My performance was flawless though. So you can take some reassurance in that,” she added, not realizing until his smile returned that she’d said it solely for his benefit. 

“Is anyone around?” 

“No, they left.” 

A strange look passed over his face. Kaylie couldn’t place it but it made her think of the second when the half giant told her she looked like Scanlan. So she doubted it was a good, uncomplicated feeling. 

“I mean, they had some errand they had to run halfway across the earth for. Some council woman took them to bury a hand or something. I don’t know. I was a bit hungover when they were talkin’ and they talk a lot of shite.” 

Scanlan laughed under his breath, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Either death took a lot out of a person or his mask hadn’t been as good as she thought. 

“I think they just wanted you to get some rest,” she found herself bullshitting in a placating tone for no reason. “Or they’d’ve waited.” 

“No, no, it’s good they left. I don’t feel up to performing quite yet.” 

“I don’t think they’d rush you into battle again straight after bringing you back from the dead,” Kaylie said uneasily. 

“No, I didn’t mean—“ He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re the only person I’d want to be with right now anyway. 

Scanlan stretched suddenly and pushed himself up in the bed. She waited a second for him to react to the nightgown, which he obviously noticed once the covers fell down. 

He raised an eyebrow, “Is this your parting gift?” 

Kaylie shook her head. “I think the intention was for you to see it upon waking, confused, wondering what had happened and what perplexity surrounded you.”

He didn’t say anything but kept his eyebrow in its dubious positioning. 

“There was more at the time. Lots of pudding.” 

“Pudding.” 

“You were tied up at one point too.” 

He shrugged. “I’ve definitely woken up tied to a bed before and I’m not unfamiliar with the feel of lady’s undergarments on my skin. But I suppose if I’d never done either of those things, I might have been shocked for a few seconds.” 

Kaylie frowned. “I didn’t need to know that.” 

“I said that in the most delicate way possible for your benefit, my dear. And frankly I’m surprised they didn’t already assume I’d be familiar with either. The pudding, though. That’s a puzzler.” 

“Well, I’m glad I made it through that conversation without hearing you say ‘I’ve definitely woken up surrounded by pudding before.’” 

Scanlan let out a full throated laugh for the first time since he’d woken and smile broke all the way across his face. “That was such a good impression, Kaylie! You’re so good with mimicry.”

She tried to hide the blush on her face even though she was disinclined to feel embarrassed. Her skills weren’t a surprise to her, but hearing Scanlan praise her was such a strange thing. It wasn’t as though they spent much time together, yet he still did it every time she saw him. It would’ve been egregious if his voice was always clear with sincerity. In fact, his voice was never more joyful than when he was telling her how good she was at something. 

There was still a part of her mind trained to hate everything about him, and that part twisted dizzily whenever he talked about how talented she was. 

She cleared her throat. “D’you need a nurse or something? I don’t know how to take care of the recently un-deceased.” 

He laughed fragilely. “No. I’m in desperate need of a piss and I’m ravenously hungry. I don’t think I need help with either, but I would appreciate it if you would accompany me to a dinner table somewhere and tell me of your adventures lately.” 

“Tell you? Of _my_ adventures?” 

“I can think of nothing better.” 

“Aren’t you the one that’s been slaying ancient evil dragons all across the land?” 

Scanlan shook his head sagely and cut a hand decisively across the air. A frilly sleeve cuff darted over his skinny arm. “Not worth a moment of my time or anybody else’s. I might have an interesting anecdote about the City of Brass. And I’m working on a limerick about a chandler I met. But dragons? Totally overrated.” 

“Uh huh.” 

“Yes.” 

“You know I had enough time today to be sober and take a good look at your new sword while you were unconscious. Something tells me you’re being uncharacteristically modest about what you’ve been up to.” 

“Oh, my new sword? Do you like it?” 

“It looks pretty fancy.”

“Do you want it? We could switch back. The other sword I gave you for this one.”

Kaylie almost goggled at him. He was as still as water. She wasn’t particularly gifted at reading enchantments, but even she could tell the blade that had been laid on the death altar with him was seeped in magic. She could have sworn when she’d moved it earlier it rang a note, even in its sheath. She’d stood mesmerized with wanting not to touch it, but to listen to it. That had been enough to make her wary of it. It looked exactly like the sort of sword folks hung on walls. The fact that Scanlan even had it made her nervous; the idea of having it for herself made her doubly so. There was no hint of mischief in his eyes either, which was more unsettling than if he’d have been having a go at her. 

She shook her head cautiously. “No, no. I’m good. This one has served me fine.” 

He shrugged. “Whatever you want, my dear, I’ll provide. Would you want to have dinner with me?” 

“Are you going to keep wearing that nightdress?” 

“If you want me to. As I said before, I’m perfectly comfortable—“

Kaylie cut him off with a loud noise. “Alright, that’s enough. Please change. I’ll go wait for you in the hall. And I will get you to tell me about those dragons, Shorthalt.” 

He paused with a solemn grin. “I promise.” 

Kaylie took a deep breath outside the room. A desire to run flared up again. It would serve him right, she thought. He’d be heartbroken and it would be payback. Payment for missing out on her life, payment for dying on her when she finally wanted him to live. 

Vex’ahlia’s words rang in her mind. Her brother’s too. They both looked at her with envy. They both wept in front of her. Every one of her father’s friends had wept. She’d been pleaded with to bring Scanlan back. They’d been so sure of his love for Kaylie, they thought he’d be lost forever if she hadn’t been there. 

Then he came back. 

She felt like a fool. Wishing she could forget she ever met him and hoping he would keep finding her. Cursing his name and fearing his death. Wanting to love him and not wanting to want anything from him at the same time. She was angry at him for being loveable. Sometimes angry at her mother and everyone else for loving him. 

She was angry at herself for wanting to hear his words and his stories. And it would be easier if she could just run away from him and forget. 

She may have been a fool, but she wasn’t actually stupid. She knew that wasn’t an option anymore.

She suspected if she did, Scanlan would just find her again. He would probably keep looking, keep trying to come back into her life no matter how many times she ran. After all, he was a fool too. 

He found her in the hall a while later and smiled, almost nervously, when she looked at him. 

“For a second I thought you’d left.” 

“You promised me whatever I wanted, right?” 

He looked askance for a moment, but quickly nodded seriously. 

“Well, for now, I want to keep talking to you. Lead on.” 

He didn’t bound off. Kaylie wasn’t sure the recently resurrected could bound, but he led as jauntily as he was able at the moment. Behind his back, in her pocket, Kaylie slid the sapphire ring back on her finger and followed after her father.

**Author's Note:**

> ~*~ 
> 
> I wrote that to distill my nerves about what the upcoming Scanlan storyline holds aaaaand it didn't do shit. I'm still so nervous about what Scanlan is going to do re drugs, re death, re Kaylie, re depression. re absolutely anything. I love my delicate, lying, pit-fiend-murdering song boy and I hope he feels better soon. 
> 
> I'm jabletown.tumblr.com if you're highly interested in being annoyed by me on tumblr and I hope you liked it.


End file.
